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| The oxwagon we slept in! |
Since my first week in Bloemfontein, I was busy with a lot of medical rounds in the hospital. First, I was in surgery. The next week I was in OBGYN. In the afternoons I had lecture, and some evenings I was on call in the hospital. My last week we went to a lot of different NGOs to basically play with children. Needless to say, I did not blog. If you want to know details about those three weeks, go visit my other blog. What I'm going to do now is just talk about my weekends as a tourist.
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| Margo and I at Goldengate |
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| Cave paintings |
The second weekend in Bloem, we went to Clarens as a group. On the way, we stopped in Ladybrand to see some cave paintings. It was crazy to think that these paintings were in that cave hundreds of thousands of years ago. While there, we learned about the culture of these San Bushmen. When we arrived in Clarens, we found out that we were sleeping in oxwagons! It was awesome enough that we braved the incredible cold. And the view was breathtaking! That night, we went into the town of Clarens, which is basically only one block of shops, for dinner and live music. In the morning, we drove to a Basotho cultural village. This was definitely a tourist trap, but they did a good job showing how the Basotho people have adapted and changed from the 1500s to modern times and the role European settlers had in that. We tried their beer and several other foods and listened to their traditional music. From the cultural village, we drove through the Goldengate Nature Reserve. We saw several different animals and enjoyed the natural beauty of the Free State the rest of the afternoon. Upon returning to Clarens, we did some shopping and then drove back to Bloem. During that week, we also learned how to sokkie, which is Afrikaans dancing. It was really fun!
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| My face after trying Basotho beer! haha |
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| Petting the lion cub! |
The next weekend, I went to Johannesburg. We luckily made friends from the medical school who live there, so we had people to show us around and take care of us. Friday night, we went to Montecasino. It was a huge place, with a movie theater, restaurants, shopping, gambling, etc. We went bowling and then had dinner. Saturday, we went to a rhino and lion park. We got to see a ton of animals, and we even got to see them feed the lions, cheetahs, and wild dogs. It was gross, but still pretty cool. Then we were able to play with the lion cubs! They were so adorable. We also went to the Wonder Cave, which is the third largest cave in South Africa. That evening, we went out for a 21st birthday party one of our friends was going to. Sunday, we went to a huge flea market place and played putt-putt. We were sad to say goodbye to our friends and return to Bloemfontein for another week without them.
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| Sokkie! |
Now I'm back at home after around 30 hours of plane flights and layovers and missing my South African friends, rusks, cool accents, sokkie, and 50-cent ice cream cones. But, I'm glad to be where it's warm and back with family and friends here. Now I'm just relaxing until I get on another plane to start my mi próxima aventura en España!
